Daring Baalbek Raid Fails To Catch Terrorist Leader

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Israel carried out its most daring raid of the 22-day conflict with Hezbollah yesterday when 200 commandos struck deep into Lebanon and seized five men in the northeastern town of Baalbek. But it admitted on last night that it had failed to capture any senior members of the Shia militia.Israeli military sources said the target of the mission was a hospital in Baalbek.The commandos aimed to capture the doctor who treated the two Israeli soldiers whose seizure by Hezbollah triggered the current crisis. The two were believed to have been wounded when they were kidnapped.Israeli press and Hezbollah spokesmen also claimed that the Israelis’ principal target was Mohammed Yazbek, who is a senior official who sits on the militia’s Shura Council, its top decision-making authority.It appeared last night that he had escaped capture.Mr. Yazbek, who is also a representative of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been targeted by the Israelis in the past, and his home was bombed in the first week of the campaign.Three of the captured men were identified in Lebanon as Hussein Nasrallah, Hussein al-Burji, and Ahmed al-Ghotah and were described as low-ranking members of the group.The first man shares his name with Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, but is not known to be related to him in any way.A Hezbollah legislator, Hussein Haj Hassan, told the Al-Arabiya television station that four of those captured by Israel were more than 50 years old.“I call on the Israeli army to show the world pictures of those captured men,” he said.The Israel Defense Force’s chief of staff, General Dan Halutz, said the raid was not to abduct somebody specific or a high-ranking Hezbollah official but rather to prove the Israel Defense Force’s ability to strike at will at Hezbollah.“We have carried out this operation to prove that we can hit everywhere in Lebanon,” he said.Prime Minister Olmert, when asked if any “big fish” had been caught said: “They are tasty fishes.”The commandos were dropped by helicopter into the Shia stronghold, 60 miles beyond the Litani River just after midnight. They stormed the Hezbollah-run Dar al-Hikma hospital, from which patients were apparently evacuated last month.Israeli army radio said the commandos split into two groups. The first went for the hospital, where they engaged in a heavy gun battle.There were mixed reports about where the five men were captured, but the hospital was said by Hezbollah sources to be empty, having been evacuated days earlier when Israelis attempted a similar landing.The second force — backed by air support — moved into the heart of the town and became involved in a gun battle with Hezbollah men. Three vehicles believed to be carrying Hezbollah fighters were hit in the battle.The commandos returned to Israel in just over four hours, after also seizing a large number of documents, computers, data disks, maps, and radio communication equipment.The Israeli military described the operation as a total success, saying 10 Hezbollah guerrillas were killed, with no Israeli casualties.The assault, with its echoes of the 1976 Entebbe raid in which Israeli special forces rescued hostages from an El Al airliner hijacked by Palestinian Arab militants in Uganda, is likely to go down well in Israel.It is welcome news for the country in a conflict in which Hezbollah has had some notable successes, such as the firefight in Bint Jbeil last week when eight Israeli soldiers were killed.But the reported deaths of at least 16 civilians during the raid, which was preceded by Israeli air strikes late on Tuesday night, is likely to further inflame anger in Lebanon. Witnesses said seven members of one family in the nearby hamlet of Jamaliyeh were killed when their house was struck by the Israeli air force.There were also claims that the commandos opened fire on another family fleeing from a Bedouin tent they had pitched nearby.A woman and her five children, aged between three and 17 were reportedly killed.This morning up to 50 people from Jamaliyeh carried pictures of Mr. Nasrallah during a small procession through the hamlet.Bodies of the dead were hastily shrouded in white cloth and carried to the graveyard in the scoop of a digger.

Daring Baalbek Raid Fails To Catch Terrorist Leader

Daring Baalbek Raid Fails To Catch Terrorist Leader

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